Dear Jane,
Good to hear that you and Jamie Peck are trying to make
sure that Antipode fills the gap as far as radical political economy
is concerned. But Antipode can't perhaps be more radical than
geography itself? But it can certainly do better than what it has
done in the recent past.
I have sometimes wondered why certain articles have been
published in Antipode *. I can't understand in what sense are
these articles radical, although they may be good on intellectual
grounds? The Antipode of its Clark days was different from what it
has been recently. It does not express the intellectual anger that it
used to earlier. Perhaps much of radical political economy as
practised in Geography has been of the 'post'-type (that
Watts and Peet have rightly criticized in the past), and that is what
is reflected through the so-called radical political economy
articles.
Except for a very few geographers, I find geographers' level of
understanding of radical political economy extremely shallow, and
that of those who critique radical political economy just
appalling. Typical radical political economy papers in say Science
and Society, Capital and Class, Rev of Rad Pol. Econ are much better
than a typical paper in Antipode, if I can generalize (this is not
say that there have not been very good papers in Antipode
firmly rooted in radical political economy -- see e.g. the one on
agrarian political economy and California). I'm not sure what the new
editorship can do about that.
Personally, I have enjoyed publishing some of my own more radical
stuff either outside Geography (e.g. Science and Society, etc) or in
other Geography journals than Antipode such as Env and Planning A
(1999 Dec) and International Journal of Urban and Regional Reseach.
For me Antipode is little different from these other journals. (Of
course, Antipode's word limit has also put me off.) I have never
submitted anything to Antipode.
What has Antipode said and how much about the perennial radical
political economy topics such as: exploitation of direct producers;
organic composition of capital; double freedom of labour, relative
autonomy of politics or ideology, commodity fetishism, transition to
capitalism in its different forms (formal and real subsumption of
labour), capital vs class centrism; geography of absolute vs relative
surplus value and its link to globalization and to uneven
development, class-spatial character of the state, class character
of ideology, etc etc. This is not to say that you don't find an
occasional piece rooted in radical political economy.
If I want to read stuff on radical political economy, Antipode is
never the first journal I would like to put my hands on. Because a
paper published there on the topic is more likely to be less original
and less interesting than one in non-geography radical political
economy journals.
Now-a-days, lots of geographers represent themselves as critical
geographers. There is very little reflection on the fact that:
being critical of certain things is more critical than being critical
of other things. It is ok to celebrate difference. But must we
not differentiate significant from non-significant differences? Is
discrimination against the one-eyed people, people with no child,
children living in high-rise apartments not having access to open
space, children being under the control of adults, people with
certain sexual behaviour, etc etc as important as
class-discrimination or discrimination based on class-and-patriarchy?
We are not raising this question perhaps because we want to be
politically correct? (Massey raised the issue but then stopped
clarifying her position in a paper in Scottish Geog Journal; Harvey
has raised and answer the question bravely; so has Peet to some
extent). Antipode has recently not distinguished between more
significant and less significant differences (see Harvey's Postmodern
Morality Plays in Soc and Sp). Perhaps to be able to be in the
market? (Talk about agency and forget about structure? Just an aside)
We are spilling much ink on the so-called critical geography issues
in part because we are spatially parochial. Critical Geography
agenda is being set by the sorts of problems that exist in (the
wealthier parts of) advanced countries. You go and tell the starving
people in the rural areas in the periphery (or even in the slums in
advanced countries) what you are critical of. And esp talk to rural
women-labourers who not only have to sell their labour power but also
'sexual power', their body. They would laugh at you.
Focussing on the limitless number of differences robs critical
geography of any emancipatory power it might otherwise have.
Commenting on the postmodernist micropolitics, Peet asked, 'where
would a transnational corporrate excecutive invest ... if he/she
most wanted to weaken his/her opposition?'. He said teasingly:
'Surely in a social theory that advocates fragmentary social
movements!' (in a book called Space and Social Theory).
Pl. see the next part.
Raju
* A similar comment was made by Harvey about certain papers published
in Society and Space in the mid-1980s --another journal which seems
to have 'degenerated' as Harvey and I believe Sayer have said).
Raju J Das
Department of Geography
University of Dundee
Dundee DD1 4HN
United Kingdom
Phone 01382 348073 work
01382 737097 home
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